A Garden Variety Love Story
by satirical
Summary: [AU] A mundane existence, an undramatic romance, a garden variety love story. Kikyou and Sesshoumaru meet each other without fireworks, without tears, without angst. A slightly sad, very grounded portrait. [Oneshot]


**The Garden Variety Love Story**

_satirical_

---

There's a game that children play. It involves stones, chalk, skipping, and counting. Crouched by the pavement, the kids play, throwing stones, dropping numbers, yelling insults. She passes them every weekday, when she gets off work. She wonders why they're still out, though the twilight is thickening like custard.

She pulls her hair out of her long, low ponytail, and hears one of the little girls by the road gasp with delight. She smiles, flattered. Her hair had always been her one vanity, her one beauty, raven and sleek down past her waist.

She ascends the stairs of her apartment building and unlocks the door. Once inside, she leans quietly against the wall, in the blue silence. She drops her messenger bag, slips off her shoes, and turns on the kitchen light. She eats dinner standing up in front of the sink, watching the news on her little television. Another pregnant movie star, another scandal in government, another terrorist threat. She is exhausted before long. She drinks a small can of mango juice. In the window, the curtains she never drew, she could see across the way, into the living room of a bachelor. At least, she thinks it's a bachelor, because men living alone and never bringing women home _are_ bachelors, aren't they? She wasn't completely sure.

The apartment is tiny. Her room is only big enough for a bed and a chair, with a little bit of walking space. She sets the alarm and changes out of her clothing. She makes a note on a post-it to go down to do her laundry soon. She sleeps restlessly.

She wakes before the sun breaks through the skyline. It is light outside, and cold as if the city were built with bricks of ice. She wraps a scarf around her neck and carries instant coffee with her to work.

She's a nurse, dressed in white, and day-by-day she sits at the side of mothers-to-be, holding their hands and murmuring comfort and "push, push, breathe," to them, as they scream and scream. She wonders why she chose the maternity ward to work in. She was only further reminded of her single status, of the thought that she'd never have a child. She spends all the time she can watching the children, wrapping them, helping the mothers feed. She spends as little time as she can at lunch, because the other nurses don't talk to her, don't like her.

She wasn't like them, with lives outside of work, girls that chatter about this man and that, and engagements and love. All she hears from them is, "When I quit—" or "And he'll take me away."

She would _never_ quit her job. Ever. If she even tried, she knew the cries of babies and mothers, knew the stinging smell of anesthetic, knew the thrill of a new life born would seduce her back. That's what she knows, and she picks at her croissant sandwich wishing she could tell the others that. But they didn't love their jobs, and they would thrive without it. They weren't like her.

She lives a mere three blocks from the hospital. She walks home, and the laughing children (the ones who threw stones and skipped and ran) could almost make her cry. Almost.

She wakes one morning with the cold baked into her bones. She knows winter has come. She wonders if this year, she'll have to walk in the snow again. She comes to the kitchen and brews tea. It is Saturday—her shift starts an hour late.

She always uses this time to study. She is thinking of getting a medical degree, and becoming a physician. She wants to work and work and work. She wants to work with children.

The phone rings. It is her sister calling. "Kikyou, you should come visit," came the sweet voice, crackling over the lines. "We all miss you." She smiles at her sister's lies. They were kind, even if they came lopsided and halted. Kagome never could fib well.

"Of course," she hears herself replying. "As soon as I can get leave from work."

As she hangs up the phone, she by chance looks up. In the window, watching her, was the bachelor. Like a deer in the headlights, she stills. He raises his pale hand in a salute. She nods back. She doesn't realize she'd been holding her breath until it hissed out of her as he turned away.

She remembers his eyes that afternoon, while administering a painkiller to a particularly upset matron. Over the distance, she could not see the color; she'd felt a sensation of heat.

"Be careful of getting burned," advises a colleague to another that day at lunch. She takes the second-hand counsel and tells herself to bury any hope she might have. Ever since her youth, men had always found someone else more charming, more attractive, more accessible. They told her she was aloof, and hearing that, she realized she frightened them. They didn't understand her. She didn't chatter and simper, like other girls. Her gaze was never flirtatious, only steady. Her personality never gleamed like precious stones—it proved sturdy as a thick tree trunk.

She just wasn't what they were looking for.

She never really missed the absence of a man in her life. She'd been raised in an all-women household, and learned self-sufficiency fairly quickly. Is that, she wondered, her problem? Kagome had never quite learned to be independent of others—someone had always saved her, always lent a helping hand. And in return, she smiled and spread her love like it was something common enough to give.

Kikyou had loved once, loved a reckless young man who needed her compassion. But Inuyasha, Inuyasha found Kagome's love more manifest, more tangible. Kikyou had lost the only one to whom she'd offered her devotion, and she'd lost him to her sister. Is it a wonder she avoided family reunions?

Sometimes the maternity ward is empty. She is lonely without the wailing and suckling. While the rest of the nurses chatted in the office to pass the time, she goes around closing windows and replenishing stock. Rarely, when positive no one could see, she tucks a small nothing into her pocket—a pacifier, a colorful pin, a tiny sock. She has a drawer in her bathroom where she tucks these things. There isn't many, but if she were ever to have a child—

Who's she kidding?

Still, she goes on keeping a stash. Perhaps, perhaps.

It is the dead of winter, some time after New Years, when she stops on her walk home. The reason is obvious—her path is blocked. She regards the scene bemusedly. A girl is sprawled out on the pavement.

"Ow, Kohaku, why'd you do that?" says the child, pulling at her unruly pigtails. She checks her knee, and her eyes widen when she sees it's bleeding from a little cut.

Kikyou remembers she has antiseptic and bandaids in her bag, as all good nurses do. She kneels, and smiles reassuringly at the girl, who'd been on the brink of tears. She applies the antiseptic and finds a flowered bandaid to stick on the child's wound. "Better now?"

The girl grins. "Wow, that's so pretty," she croons, pointing to the flower pattern. "Thank you! Look, Satsuki!"

Satsuki, comes and peers at the other's knee. "Ooo, Rin, that's really cool!"

Kikyou can't help but smile. As the girl, Rin, ran off, she ponders what it'd be like to have a daughter. She thinks about it as she takes off her shoes at the entrance of her home. She thinks about it as she watches the television. She thinks about it before she falls asleep. In the morning, she wakes up content.

She works the late shift the day after, as one of the other nurses had called in sick. She doesn't mind; in fact, she prefers it to the loneliness of her small, frigid apartment. She punches out at nine—the air is laced with frost, the night broken only by the intermittent glow of streetlamps. As she approaches the spot where the children play their games daily, she sees only the one from before, Rin, was still left at this late hour. A man crosses the street and stands before Rin, and the girl's smile indicates that her family has come pick her up. Then Rin spots her coming towards them and waves enthusiastically. The man turns.

Kikyou felt her breathing freeze, and the reason has nothing to do with the chill on the air. It is the man from across the way, the bachelor. He is dressed in black, expensive clothing, and once again his gaze lights an inferno between them. His hair is silver and gold in the street light. He nods, and introduces himself as "Inujin Sesshoumaru." She smiles politely and gives her name as "Higurashi Kikyou."

And the little girl pipes up, "Inujin, Rin!"

Kikyou smiles. Sesshoumaru smiles. The little girl is beaming.

Kikyou inquires after the cut, which Rin squeaked was healed. Then she politely bid the father and child good night. She returned to her home, finished her nightly routine, and only then did she realize that the bachelor in the window was not a bachelor at all, but a father. Inexplicably, she's jealous. She goes to bed.

The next day at work, a bouquet of flowers arrives as she's tucking in a worn out patient. "Oh, how beautiful," she murmurs. Calla lilies.

The nurse who had brought them stares at Kikyou until she haplessly blushes. "They're for you," she says finally. "Not the patient."

Kikyou's surprise convinces the other nurse in a way no frantic denial would. Before the day ends, the entire maternity ward buzzes with the news that the distant, standoffish Higurashi Kikyou had received flowers. Expensive, no less. She bears it as well as she can, eventually giving them to a mother whom no one had visited during the entirety of her delivery. Women uncared for deserved little kindnesses. She plucks the card from the flowers, enters while the young woman is sleeping, and stands it by the window. She sneaks out before the mother wakes up.

A particularly brave colleague of hers catches up with her by the end of the day. "Who were they from?" Kikyou merely gazes at her until the other woman gives up and leaves in the other direction. She fingers the note that's in the pocket of her thick winter coat. There had been no note, only the name.

Inujin.

She stops Rin as she is chased by a boy and tells her to thank her father for her. Rin replies cheekily, "Tell him yourself!" Rin points.

He is sitting on a park bench with a manila folder in his hands and a gray scarf thrown around his shoulders. His hair, sleek and light, is drifting in the wind. His fingers are long and strong. She catches herself staring and makes toward him.

"Inujin-sama," she bows to him. "Thank you for your kindness in sending those flowers."

He replies, "It wasn't kindness."

She knows what he's implying. He shuts his folder and raises his eyes, and she is close enough to see them in the sunset. They are such a light brown, it is almost amber. He tucks his hair behind his ears and studies her. "You live in the other apartments, correct?"

"Hai."

"I can see you in the windows sometimes. I hope you don't take offense, but I've noticed that you live very simply."

"It is only myself, and I have no desire to be extravagant."

"Is it not lonely?"

She glances up, startled. "Maybe, occasionally."

"Have dinner with Rin and I," he invites. "Rin complains that my company is boring when she's seen my face everyday."

She quirks a corner of her mouth in amusement. He mocks himself very blandly, in an emotionless and stoic sort of way. She enjoys listening to him. Against her better judgment (because she knows she will fall in love and he will be confused as to why, since he had never been anything but courteous to her, and given her no reason to love him, just like everyone else) she says yes.

Thus a quiet, respectful courtship begins. Once or twice a week, hen she catches him in the window (of the room she has learned is his den, and thus she never sees Rin inside), he lifts a hand in greeting. She nods back. Then that night, after she has finished tending to the babies and holding the hands of the mothers, she slips on lip balm and brushes her hair. Instead of going to her apartment, she'd go to his, bringing Rin along the way. They'd prepare dinner, the two girls, and they will be chattering and giggling when he comes in, home from work. He'll smell the food, and from the relaxed stance he adopts, she'll know he's pleased. They have dinner sitting down, and they talk about their day. When there is nothing to say, they eat in companionable silence. Kikyou is content as she leaves the apartment for the night, and content when she comes into her own empty place. She need only look across the way to feel, for once, completely at peace.

She realizes that whenever she sees him, she brightens. Casual, the frequency of the dinners increases. Soon, she is spending her evenings with them nearly every day. She looks forward to six o'clock, and never takes the late shift. She brings Rin little gifts—books, toys, a favorite puzzle she found in her closet.

He has never touched her. He has never hinted at anything _more_ between them. She wonders about it one day in the spring, as she treated herself to a coffee break. No flowers ever come for her again. No suave words, no diamond necklaces like the other girls. She thinks she knows why. He isn't looking for a romantic love interest, but a friend: someone to speak to, to ease the days along. She asks herself if she is satisfied with this arrangement, and she realizes she is. Romance, she decides, is not for her.

It just isn't what she is looking for.

Sometimes, on Sundays, he cooks. Every time she peeks into the kitchen with Rin to see him over the stove, his hair in a ponytail, she laughs. This evening, it is filet mignon and sautéed vegetables with a warm chicken broth. He brings her cuisine he has picked up when traveling outside of Japan. It tastes foreign and succulent, and she marvels at her luck.

It comes as a surprise when he asks her to marry him. They are coming back from the grocery store, both weighed down by bags of produce, when he suddenly stops. She pauses too, and looks back to him. He is gazing at her, and she is glad it is dark, because her cheeks are aflame. When he says it, she reels with shock. He tells her he knows it'll take deliberation on her part, but he's been thinking it for a while. He tells her that ever since his ex-wife died, he hasn't been as alive, as involved in enjoying moments, as he was when he was with her. She, he tells her, revived him.

She realizes that this must be what love is. It isn't frenetic kissing, or holding hands, or a heated night in the sheets, not like she's read or like what her sister has told her. It isn't flowers and wine and jewelry. It is listening when he spoke, caring for what he thoughts, and receiving the same in return. It is the little things, it is camaraderie, it is that solid, unspoken attraction and appreciation.

She says yes after dinner. His face clears, and she sees him smile widely. Before she leaves, he kisses her. She feels herself melt, every muscle loosen. She is shining with joy as she descends the stairs.

Their wedding is a small, civil affair. She dresses in white. He wears black. Rin prances down the aisle in front of them, forgetting to scatter rose petals and belatedly throwing them all over the minister. The single witness is his retainer Jaken, who also took photos to send to relatives. Kagome calls her a week after, her voice shaking with disbelief. "Why didn't you tell me? Ask for advice? An older man with a _child_? Kikyou what are you thinking?"

"That I love him," Kikyou replies.

Their honeymoon is brief—they escape to the mountains to breathe the thin, unpolluted air. It is then that she learns by practice the ecstasy that occurs between two bodies, two souls. For them both, it ends too soon. They hadn't realized a retreat with solely each other would bring such an undiluted enjoyment. But back to the city they go, and pick up their respective jobs. The only point of strife is that from time to time, Sesshoumaru urges his wife to come stay at home instead of working everyday.

Kikyou replies that she'd promised herself not to leave her job. She loves the work, the children, the women. She loves aiding to bring forth life. She isn't about to quit. He comprehends, and he respects her decision.

Then one day, she doesn't go to the hospital in the morning. He comes home to see the entire apartment cleaned and straightened, and Rin with a sly smile on the couch. "What's happened?" he asks. "I thought you wouldn't be home until seven."

"I'll be taking a leave of absence from the hospital," she tells him, pecking him on the cheek. He hangs his blazer.

"_Why_? I thought you love—"

And then he spots Rin cuddling her doll in the corner with a face-splitting beam.

"Mother in Heaven," he murmurs, catching Kikyou around the waist and spinning her around the room. "Oh my God!" He kisses her soundly, holding her to him like he'd never let go. He doesn't usually tell her how he feels, but today he whispers, "I love you," in her ear.

She smiles enigmatically and gives him a little push. "Sit down," she says, "dinner's almost ready."

"We'll need a house," he realized. "The apartment's too small."

"We'll worry about that later." She stirs the miso soup. Sesshoumaru leaps up from his seat and came to the kitchen, encircling her with his arms. His hands rested on her lower stomach.

"My beautiful wife," he murmurs into her hair. "My beautiful wife carries my beautiful child." Her eyes glimmer with tears.

She'd thought this day wouldn't come.


End file.
